BCS Board Fails To Authorize Capital Project Financing

by David Flint
Although Berlin School District taxpayers voted in December to approve floating a bond of $5 million to fix up school buildings, when it came time for the School Board to actually authorize the financing, the votes were lacking. At their meeting on Tuesday the School Board voted 4-3 to authorize the bonding, but by State law a 2/3rds majority is required for such an authorization, so the resolution did not pass. [private]In the same vote the Board did approve a transfer of $1.8 million from a capital reserve fund into the capital project fund, that resolution needing only a simple majority to pass. Therefore, as Business Manager William Burke summed it up, the $1.8 million can be used for the Capital Project, but the Board did not approve borrowing so they can’t spend beyond that amount because they would not have financing for it. Voting in favor of the resolution were Gina Goodermote, Rachel Finney, James Willis and Frank Zwack. In opposition were John Nash, Beverly Stewart and Alan Webster, Jr. Board President Goodermote pledged to bring the resolution back to the Board at subsequent meetings.
No Referendum On Vacant School Properties
An attempt to have the taxpayers vote on whether to transfer the Grafton and Stephentown properties to those respective towns also ran into trouble. Goodermote submitted a resolution to put to the voters on May 15 whether the District should turn over the properties for public use, each for the sum of $1. This generated considerable acrimonious discussion among Board members. Nash objected that, to begin with, the resolution could not be raised at this meeting because it was not on the agenda. Goodermote contended it was on the agenda under Old Business. In fact it was the same resolution voted down at the January 17 meeting except that the Grafton Fire District was changed to the Town of Grafton. Nash thought that the Board had agreed to slow the process down in order to do some due process and see if sale of the properties could bring in needed revenue. Appraisals on the properties had been sought and were expected in two or three weeks. Nash, Webster and Stewart protested that the Board could not go to the voters when faced with probably having to cut programs and staff and with a possible 3% tax increase and at the same time propose to give away two buildings and land. Stewart said that revenue from sale of the properties could potentially be a life saver for the District, if not this year then possibly next year. If they don’t sell in a year’s time then the Board could consider transferring to the towns. She noted that even back in the 1940s Stephentown had the good sense to put up for auction an abandoned one room school building and gained $1,400 from the sale.
Webster said that Stephentown Town Supervisor Larry Eckhardt had wanted to see a plan from the School Board regarding Stephentown Elementary School. “Other than just giving the schools away,” he said, “we don’t really have a plan.” He suggested the Board take a lesson from the Town of Hoosick that recently took a step back from committing to renovating the Hoosick Falls Armory because “according to the Town Supervisor they had no plan and were tripping over their own feet.”
Zwack said he has spoken with realtors and they predicted it would be a hard sale. There is no market in the private sector, he said, because the assessed value is so high the buyers would not be able to afford the taxes.
Goodermote’s previous resolution, the one that passed with Jim Willis’ vote on January 31, requested barter proposals from the Grafton Fire District and the Town of Stephentown for taking over the properties “in exchange for specified services.” That language was missing from the current resolution. The price would instead be simply $1. She said later that the change was because neither Grafton nor Stephentown had actually proposed any exchange of services. Willis said he liked the barter proposal better. Frank Zwack, who made the motion on the resolution, said he could amend his motion to specify services equal to the amount of the appraisals, but Goodermote said that was not possible because a lawyer had drafted the resolution and she could not change it. So she put it to a vote, and Willis voted no, making the count 4-3 against the resolution.
Schools Superintendent Dr. Stephen Young recommended the properties be put up for sale again, giving people a chance to get interested. If they did not sell in six months the Board could put it to the voters and let them decide if they wanted to give the properties away. In the meantime he suggested the buildings be “mothballed” so as to save at least some of the $50,000 maintenance. He said realtors have suggested leaving the properties on the market for a year, but Young believed the Board would have a good idea in six months whether the sale was going anywhere.
Barbara Messenger, Town of Grafton Councilwoman, spoke at the end of the meeting to commend the Board for slowing down the process of transferring the vacant schools. The Grafton Town Board, she said, had created a committee to research whether acquiring the school would be in the Town’s best interest and it would indeed have been a surprise to them to hear that the School Board had made a decision. She supported Dr. Young in seeking the appraisals, marketing the buildings and giving them a chance to be sold before giving them away. She reiterated what she had heard at a recent Grafton Fire District meeting, “Let’s slow this down a bit so everyone can get their bearings.”
The Budget
Business Manager Burke gave a brief presentation on a few pieces of the 2012-13 budget. The Athletic Department would continue with all current sports and programs, but there would be a modest projected increase for new supplies, increased referee fees and the addition of modified wrestling. Extra-Class activities would increase by about $3,000 so that Masterminds, which was added in the middle of this school year, could be continued. Computer services had a projected increase of about $36,000. Burke said that at the budget workshop meeting on March 27 he would have a much longer presentation.
Budgeting For Technology
Dr. Young went through the whole gamut of technology hardware and software to give a picture of what the District would need to invest over the next three years to be up to date in technology. Among things that need to be looked at are software and server upgrades, additional bandwidth for intended uses, improving wireless capability, web filtering, email archiving, purchase of additional computers and peripherals and scheduled computer replacements. The oldest computers were added in 2003 and the newest just last June. It is recommended that computers be replaced after 3 to 5 years, which means Berlin should be replacing 50 to 100 computers each year. Young recommended that the District replace the 2003 and 2004 machines, all 44 of them, next year. Then in 2014 they would replace the 2005 and 2006 computers.
His suggested technology budget for the next three years includes spending $37,600 in the current year on items including website redesign and hosting, bandwidth increase and servers and switches. In the next school year $113,160 would spend for a variety of things, and in 2013-14 $20,200 would be spent for web filtering for a total that year of $127,360. Thus the total technology budget over the three years would be $278,120.
Agreement On Legislative Advocacy
The meeting ended on a more agreeable note than earlier. John Nash, who along with Rachel Finney had been appointed as Legislative Liaison, asked that the Board reconsider the role of that office. He said that the policy states that a member of the Board be appointed Legislative Liaison, and he did not see any value in having two members serve in that role. It just takes up extra time in meetings. But beyond that he believed that the policy was directing the Board to come up with collective positions as a Board that they would effectively advocate for. Just for him to do some research or go to hearings and come back and regurgitate information that is already out there and available to the general public serves no purpose. The Board’s role is to collectively assume specific positions on current legislation that might affect the District, he contended. Nash protested that he could not advocate individually and that the Board needs to take a much more active role in negotiating with elected officials. He mentioned unfunded mandates as one issue on which the Board could easily form a collective position.
The rest of the Board appeared to agree with this stance. Stewart said the Board had somewhere got off the track and needed to adhere to the policy. “Believe it or not,” she said, “there are a lot of things we agree on.” Willis and Goodermote agreed that it was not Nash’s job to formulate positions and the Board as a whole should come up with some prime legislative objectives. Nash suggested that after the Budget is done the Board might think about devoting a special meeting to look at specific issues that everyone feels strongly about and then set about creating position statements.[/private]